Accused of a Washington Post investigation of ongoing ties to the Kremlin to undermine France’s support for Ukraine, France’s National Assembly party on Tuesday denounced a “conspiracy,” AFP and Agerpres reported.

According to an investigation published a few days ago by The Washington Post, Russia is conducting a subversive campaign in France, in which the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen plays an important role.

The investigation cites “Kremlin documents obtained by the European security service” regarding the entourage of Vladimir Putin, whose methods, according to him, combine the influence of social networks focused on the “troll farm” and support for far-right -wing parties. According to the Washington Post, the broader goal is to destabilize Europe.

“All Western European governments will be changed,” the American newspaper quoted Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a former European member of the National Assembly, as saying. In its investigation published on Saturday, the Washington Post also claimed that Schaffhauser “rents out the floor of his residence” in Strasbourg to a second employee of the Russian embassy in France, who held a position at the Council of Europe before his expulsion. in March 2022.

Marine Le Pen’s party says it has no ties to Russia

“It’s all a conspiracy,” National Assembly spokesman Laurent Giacobelli responded to Sud Radio, saying there was “no connection” between Russia and his party.

Last June, a macronist parliamentary committee speaker described the National Front (now the National Assembly) as Russia’s “drive belt”, insisting on the party’s “alignment” with “Russian discourse” during the “illegal annexation” of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, which took place shortly after obtaining a loan from a Czech-Russian bank.

“The National Assembly is actually the mouthpiece of the Kremlin in France” and “plays a major role in spreading Putin’s propaganda,” according to a Washington Post investigation, according to a statement from Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party on the X platform.

“An element of macronist language” rejected by Giacobelli, who recalled the “clear position” of the National Assembly on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, condemned by Marine Le Pen from February 2022. But the party remains skeptical about the “offensive of arms assistance” offered to Kyiv and opposes the “useless embargoes” imposed on Moscow.

Five months before the European elections, Giacobelli did not hide his conviction that the victory of the far-right would generate “radical changes, especially regarding the sanctions imposed on some countries because of their policies.”

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